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Jill’s eyes snapped over to her friend in surprise, which was followed promptly by embarrassment. She’d been so wrapped up in her own memories of her own experience that she hadn’t even considered that it wasn’t her that they were looking at.
“Maybe,” she said slowly, attempting to organize her thoughts enough to speak practically. She blinked, noticing for the first time how crowded it was around them. She couldn’t fault Diane for thinking they were looking at her when she was thinking the same thing about herself. They could easily both be wrong and the last thing she wanted was her friend to be disappointed. “There are a lot of people on the platform. They could be looking at anything,” she cautioned.
Diane grimaced as she peered at those pressed closest to them and sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. I just wish…”
A blast of a horn cut through the air, and though Jill strained to hear her, Diane’s words were swallowed up by the loud rush of air from the rapidly approaching tram. From the corner of her eye, she watched as the males pushed their way across the platform. They didn’t get far, however, before they were cut off as the crowd surged forward so that people pressed tighter together at the fore of the platform, eager to get on board.
She craned her neck, keeping a curious eye on the Geminidae even as the tram came to a stop and the doors slid open, admitting those waiting on the platform. They didn’t have a chance to make it any closer and their realization of the fact was evident on their faces as they glowered with frustration at the people around them. The press of the crowd not only blocked them off but carried them with it into an entrance several cars down from theirs. She shook her head as she hurried inside with Diane. There wasn’t much of a hope to know now, as there was no way to move from car to car once inside. Not only because there was no connecting door, but because even shuffling to get out of the tram at one’s stop was a chore.
As usual, the tight conditions crammed Jill and Diane close together, but even then, Diane had to lean in to be heard over the noise.
“Do you think it might have been one of them that you saw that night?” Diane practically yelled into her ear.
Jill immediately shook her head in response but frowned. Was there any way for her to really be sure? She hadn’t felt that strange feeling that she felt when she saw that shadow, but even she admitted that part could have been a product of her imagination.
“I don’t know,” she admitted with a sigh.
“You don’t want it to be, though, do you?” Diane whispered knowingly. “In your heart of hearts, does it say that it could be a possibility?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not.”
And for Diane, it was really that simple. Jill wished she could believe it so easily, but she found herself watching for a familiar feathered form as they began their day. She half suspected that Diane was watching as well as there seemed to be a nervous, expectant energy in the air between them as the hours trickled by.
Something was bound to happen soon. She could feel it in her bones.
Chapter16
Brydis flapped his wings as he sailed over the city, following close behind Agor as the male led the way. The sense of lethargy he’d been feeling had retreated with their hunt for their talia, but in truth, he knew it was his promise to Agor and his twin’s insistence that they head out as planned that had him flying over narrow residential streets.
He couldn’t help feeling that this was all wrong. What were they doing? They were on an insane hunt along a network of streets in search of their mate based off Agor’s feeling during a storm when they should have been heading to the port. He didn’t doubt that his twin had experienced the taliazon, but logic also dictated that it didn’t necessarily mean she was still there or that it was even Jill. Although he hated to think of the fact that they couldn’t shut off their awareness of other potential taliazon matches, it was still a possibility that in the confusion of the storm, Agor could have felt the presence of another female and confused it for the presence of their talia.
Whatever the case was, they’d been circling over the same stretch of streets for a while now without a hint of Jill’s presence. Brydis sighed, casting a concerned look at his twin. Agor’s flying was becoming more rushed and erratic as his stress heightened. He wasn’t taking her absence from the area well. Even now, his wings were trembling as he flew.
“Agor,” Brydis called out loudly.
They typically used visual cues while in flight since conversation was considerably more difficult, but he was determined to catch his twin’s attention.
Agor’s head turned, glancing over at him, and Brydis gestured that they needed to perch for a moment. A look of frustration crossed the male’s face, but his wings folded, and he veered sharply to the right toward a tall building with Brydis right behind him. The structure of the building was inferior to their own in regard to having sufficient holds but with several rapid flaps of their wings, they managed to stabilize themselves along the wall as they searched out their grips and relaxed into the wall to catch their breath. Agor glowered over at him in frustration, his crest extending.
“Why are we stopping? I know it has to be around here somewhere.”
Brydis shook his head, his wings extending a bit further to help him maintain his balance on the wall. “If it is, she’s not here now. We should go to port and see if there are any records filed as we originally planned. All we are doing is exhausting ourselves.”
“We can’t go, if we do…” Agor’s voice faded away as his attention snapped to a spot in the air just behind Brydis in the direction from which they came. His crest snapped up the rest of the way, his feathers fluffing out and his wings flapped angrily as he visibly bristled in agitation.
“Agor, wha…?” Brydis glanced back and stiffened as he saw the source of his twin’s hostility.
Another pair of Geminidae were circling along the same route they had taken but seemed to be confining themselves to a smaller area as if hunting for something… or someone.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” he began slowly, but Agor had already pushed away from the wall with a snarl.
Brydis cursed as he too dropped away and winged after the male speeding toward avrhast twins nearby. Agor was flying with an explosion of energy that propelled him forward at a speed that Brydis struggled to keep up with. Thankfully, his twin didn’t immediately go into an attack. Regardless of the current heat of instinct, attacking another avrhast, and especially directly over the human city, would have seen them dragged before the aerhal before the day was out. Instead, Agor swooped in an arc, cutting between them and disrupting their flight so to communicate the immediate need to land and speak. All three males promptly dropped to the nearest building as Brydis closed the remaining distance between them.
Dropping to the roof of the shorter building that they’d selected, Brydis eyed the yellow and green plumed pair. Though their crests were likewise extended, they seemed to be more curious than possessing the same level of territorial hostility that Agor was. They needed to find Jill soon if Agor was demonstrating territoriality reserved for the rookery over an entire human residential area.
“Agor,” he cautioned, but the male in question swiped his hand in annoyance, cutting him off as he advanced toward the pair.
